


Cold Feet

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-27
Updated: 2007-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 23:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Aieeagah!" Rodney yelps the first time John curls close in bed and presses cold feet to his calves, ruining what was shaping up to be an exceptionally satisfying post-coital sprawl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Feet

"Aieeagah!" Rodney yelps the first time John curls close in bed and presses cold feet to his calves, ruining what was shaping up to be an exceptionally satisfying post-coital sprawl.

John shifts uncomfortably. "Thought about leaving my socks on but – " He hitches a shoulder.

Rodney makes a face, imagining their just-completed activities with a pair of white tube socks flashing in his peripheral vision. "That's so not hot."

"Exactly."

Rodney grumbles and magnanimously spoons closer. "Go on," he says as though put upon. "Warm them up, you'll only – "

And before the sentence is finished, John does so, making happy, grateful noises that Rodney's fairly sure are now his personal kryptonite. He noses the back of John's neck and thinks vague, brain-scrambled thoughts about Superman losing the ability to stare through women's clothes because of John Sheppard's mumbling, and after that it's hardly surprising he dreams of leaping tall lab benches in a single bound.

It's probably Pavlovian – the association between hot sex and cold feet that's now taken up residence in Rodney's brain – but Rodney quickly finds he can't stop thinking about John's freezing toes. After only a couple of hours the next morning, he's compiled a list of all the medical conditions that could result in poor circulation, and by lunchtime he's practically frantic over the prospect of the stealth gangrene that's setting up camp in John's large feet.

"It's nothing," John hisses over mashed meat and roasted tubers at lunchtime. "Quit it, McKay."

"It could be diabetes!" Rodney whispers back sharply. "And then where would you be, Colonel Never Met A Snack Cake I Didn't Love?"

John glowers at him, but slinks off to the infirmary after he's eaten, and Rodney feels smug for all of half an hour before he realizes John's probably having his toes amputated without anesthetic while Rodney's having fun with radiowaves and tava beans. He gallops off to berate Carson for being so inhuman as to slice off a man's toes in the prime of his life – it's a handy mental distraction from realizing he's just ended the Colonel's military career because he wasn't entirely comfortable being treated as a hot water bottle even after John did that thing with his tongue. Twice – and meets John coming the other way, twirling a tongue depressor between his fingers and whistling the music from the _Brady Bunch_.

"You're walking!" Rodney says, stunned.

John blinks slowly. "Neat trick, huh?" He keeps going.

Rodney works his jaw silently before he jogs to catch up. "He didn't chop anything off?"

John raises an eyebrow. "He suggested better socks."

"So you don't have gangrene or nanites or mandroid toes?"

"No?" John says carefully, as if Rodney's a bomb that might detonate if he deploys the wrong tone of voice. "Are you okay?"

Rodney sighs, shoulders slumping, and waves his tablet. "I was just concerned that perhaps your cardio-vascular health was in such bad shape – and yes, yes, I know you run, and even lift things, I've seen you lifting things, I know about your very manly biceps, but it's not impossible to imagine that you could be nursing a heart attack considering you eat far too much bacon and had _four_ helpings of We Think They're Possibly Ribs last Thursday – and . . ."

"Rodney."

" – and I'd be quite, no, rather, in fact, much, very, a lot, I'd be disgruntled, possibly even – what?"

"I just have cold feet."

Rodney blinks and wet his lips. "Oh. Well, that's – that's good then. Just – cold feet."

John looks casually over his shoulder, checking for other personnel. "Think I could warm 'em up again later?"

Rodney feels his ears grow hot and half-smiles before he can stop himself, nodding as he clears his throat and tries to school his features into something judgmental and scientific rather than smitten. "Yes, yes, of course, I mean – "

"Cool," John grins. "I gotta – " He jerks a thumb over his shoulder.

"Right, right, I have to, uh – " Rodney jerks a thumb in the opposite direction.

"Later," John smirks before he lopes away, and Rodney watches him go, mesmerized by the flash of blue-and-white boxers peeking over the waistband of the Colonel's BDU pants.

It's no surprise when John presses cold feet to Rodney's calves later that night, and while Rodney still flinches at the contact he burrows closer and doesn't protest. "Better?" he asks fuzzily, his higher brain functions still smoldering in a tiny, satisfied, sated heap.

"Mmmmm," John agrees, his breathing growing slow.

Rodney noses the back of his neck and slides a hand over John's belly, inching his fingers between John's thighs.

"Jesus!" John yelps. "Your fingers are – "

"Cold," Rodney mumbles petulantly.

" _Yeah_ ," John agrees, panting a little with the surprise. "Give a man some – " And then he pauses, a long, silent moment in which Rodney can all but hear the cogs and wheels of his mind shift into gear. In the next moment he goes slack and loose inside the circle of Rodney's arms, sighing drowsily into the pillow they share. "Yeah, okay," he whispers.

And Rodney, cold of calf and warm of hand, exhales against John's spine, fingers defrosting happily between John's thighs. "Maybe _I_ have gangrene," he wonders sleepily.

"Rodney – "

"Shutting up now," Rodney agrees on a sigh, and falls asleep against John's broad back, nose in John's hair, wearing a smile.


End file.
